Stuff in Santa's footprints / TUE 10-1-24 / Pretentious friend of Winnie-the-Pooh / Napoleon Dynamite's best friend / Santa Monica tourist attraction / Company that merged with Heinz in 2015 / Purchase for a white elephant exchange / Word repeated four times in the chorus of Taylor' Swift's "Shake It Off"

Constructor: Kevin Curry and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium? Maybe a little north of Medium... (**for a Tuesday**)

THEME: CRYPTOZOOLOGIST (57A: Pseudoscientist investigating the "sightings" in this puzzle) — false sightings of mythical creatures; that is, mythical creatures are almost spelled out inside the theme answers (with each creature having just one letter wrong):
Theme answers:

• TENNESSEE TITANS (17A: A.F.C. South team ("Look in the lake! It's  ... ah, never mind") (false NESSIE, i.e. Loch Ness Monster, sighting)
• MUCKRAKING (23A: Investigative journalism ("What was that in the sea?! I must be imagining things") (false KRAKEN sighting)
• CUBIC FOOT (35A: Imperial unit of volume ("There's another one! I swear he just slipped into those trees...") (false BIGFOOT sighting)
• COPY EDITOR (49A: Professional proofreader ("Over there, in the snow! That had to b something, right?!") (false YETI sighting)

Word of the Day: WASH. U. (6D: Sch. located in St. Louis, not Seattle) —

Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington, the first president of the United States.

Washington University comprises eight undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, including Arts and Sciences, George Warren Brown School, Olin Business School, Washington University School of Medicine, McKelvey School of Engineering, Washington University School of Law, School of Continuing & Professional Studies, and Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Washington University enrolls approximately 16,550 students across its campuses from all 50 states and more than 110 countries.

Washington University has been a member of the Association of American Universities since 1923 and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". In 2021, the National Science Foundation ranked Washington University 25th among academic institutions in the United States for research and development expenditures. The university's athletic teams, Washington University Bears, play in NCAA Division III as a founding member of the University Athletic Association. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello and Happy October. I had two very different reactions to this one. At the start, I was lukewarm to cold on this puzzle, because both the fill and cluing seemed ... off. There's only one type of fire residue I associate with Santa, and it ain't ASH, what a weird clue (1A: Stuff in Santa's footprints). First, I hate to tell you, but Santa is not real, so there really should be some kind of iconic moment, a locus classicus, a piece of a poem or something, that confers ASH upon his soles. One can infer that if he lands feet first when he comes down the chimney, he's got ASH in his footprints, but oddly, you never (ever) hear about him tracking ASH around the house. But you do hear about the SOOT on his ridiculous suit, so ... ASH shmash is what I'm saying to that clue. And that was Answer One. Then came the crosswordese, AREEL and ASSAM and WASHU and ESE, and then the expectation that I'm going to remember Napoleon Dynamite at all, let alone the character's best friend (32A: Napoleon Dynamite's best friend).. Now, I *did* remember that people were wearing "Vote for PEDRO" t-shirts there for a while back in the ... whatever era it was. Early Aughts? Yes, '04-ish. But still, that is some weird millennial nostalgia right there. (See also the Taylor Swift clue—I know that song, but my brain couldn't produce any part of it except "Shake it off, shake it off!" (62A: Word repeated four times in the chorus of Taylor' Swift's "Shake It Off")). So the clues occasionally seemed off (or, in the case of Napoleon Dynamite and Tay Tay, oddly fandom-oriented), and the short fill (so much of it) just seemed weak ... 

['HATE' is said five times, but (therefore) "repeated" just four, so the clue is correct]

But then ... then the theme kicked in, and I have to say that it's completely original and highly entertaining. Love all the misspellings, especially BICFOOT, which ... how is this not already the mascot for Bic pens? He could leave cryptic messages for the CRYPTOZOOLOGIST with his pen feet! Come on, it's a good idea and you know it. Anyway, building the idea of the false sighting into the cryptozoology-themed puzzle = mwah, perfect. I wasn't cheering right away ("so you're just misspelling NESSIE? OK but ... I don't get it, what's the point"), but as the other creatures rolled in, I warmed to the concept, and then when the revealer dropped, I thought "oh, there it is! A great word *and* a perfect grid-spanner. Nice." CRYPTOZOOLOGIST also landed in the grid really dramatically—I had just the -IST, merely glanced at the clue, and whoooooosh, there it went, soaring across the grid:

One problem with the theme cluing, though: a CRYPTOZOOLOGIST would never say "I must be imagining things" (see clue for "KRAKIN" sighting). The CRYPTOZOOLOGIST would believe what she sees, or thought she saw, because it's what she's looking for, what she's hoping to see. The other imagined CRYPTOZOOLOGIST statements are great because they express real hope, or disappointment ... but never doubt in one's own cryptozoological enterprise. "I must be imagining things" is not a phrase in the CRYPTOZOOLOGIST's phrase arsenal. But, again, otherwise, this theme is stupendous. Clever, imaginative ... great fun.

Lots of little missteps today, but no real capital-T Trouble. "HOO BOY!" or "HOORAY!" before "HOORAH!" (20A: Triumphant shout), although I guess "HOO BOY!" is more "YIPES!" then "YIPEE!" ... which is what I had instead of YIPES at first (50D: "Yowzers!"). Who the hell says "Yowzers!" Is that different from "Yowza?" Because "Yowza!" seems excited, whereas "YIPES!" seems freaked out. So that's twice I tripped on ambiguously excited exclamations. I also wanted DECOR instead of DRAPE (48A: Window dressing). I think of DRAPES, plural, as the "dressing." I like DRAPE better as a verb is what I'm saying. Or you could talk about the DRAPE of an article of clothing, the way it hangs on the body, that's good too. A single DRAPE in the window strikes my ears as weird. No other problems for me, though. The fill isn't so great today. I actually (briefly) sat here and worked out different ways of eliminating LEASTS from the grid, so much did I hate it (66A: Bare minimums). So far, my favorite alternative changes OWL to OMB, and then the two Acrosses down there change to MOVE IN and BEASTS (or BOASTs), but there's gotta be even better options ... I don't actually like OMB (Office of Management and Budget) at all, let alone on a Tuesday, but I really Really hate LEASTS, so ... yeah, fix that, pls. If LEASTS were good, it would've appeared way more often. All those ultra-common letters and it's only appeared in the NYTXW twice in my lifetime! For a reason! Because it's not good! I did like GAG GIFT, though (43D: Purchase for a white elephant exchange). Easily the best answer in the grid. I just taught Manny Farber's "White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art" in my "Moviegoing" class, so White Elephants are fresh on my mind.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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